My favorite PSB mashups
It took me a while to warm up to the phenomenon of "mashups," in which an imaginative DJ/mixer/musictechgeek blends two tracks together, often revealing surprising (and occasionally shocking) musical convergences in the process. But now I love them, at least when they're done really well. I think my favorite mashups to date are Blondie vs. the Doors' "Rapture on the Storm," Madonna vs. Daft Punk's "Da Funk Music," Kylie Minogue vs. New Order's "Can't Get Blue Monday Out of My Head," and—last but certainly not least—the unbelievable Nirvana vs. Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give Your Teen Spirit Up."
There are some really good PSB mashups as well. And why wouldn't there be? After all, the Boys themselves pioneered the genre (in a manner of speaking), creating something very closely akin to mashups with "Where the Streets Have No Name (I Can't Take My Eyes Off You)" and their remixes (actually re-recordings) of David Bowie's "Hallo Spaceboy."
Attempting a complete, comprehensive list would quickly become a very tedious pursuit, but I do want to recognize the ones that I really like when I happen upon them. So here are my own personal favorite PSB mashups, all of which are (at least at the time of this writing) accessible via YouTube and/or other online sites:
- Pet Shop Boys vs. (a facsimile of) Corey Hart - "West End Sunglasses"
Are you surprised? This proto-mashup was created and released back in 1984—long before the word "mashup" had been coined—by the Boys' original producer Bobby O or someone under his purview. It mixes the original version of "West End Girls" with a cover of Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night," which had been a major hit earlier that same year. The singer of the latter sounds so much like Hart that he's fooled a lot of people through the years, myself included. Half of me hates the thing for its sheer exploitiveness, but the other half has to admit that it's actually quite good. In either case it's a clever track that, in its own way, was years ahead of its time.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Placebo - "Love Comes Running Up That Hill Quickly"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Anne Clark - "God Willing (JCRZ Remix)"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Patrick Swayze - "She's Minimal Like the Wind"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Madonna - "West End Jump"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Madonna - "Into the Minimal Groove"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Smokey Robinson - "Tracks of My Mind"
- Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield vs. Mariah Carey - "Bye Bye (TMC's In Private Mix)"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Coldplay - "Viva Home and Dry"
- Coldplay vs. Pet Shop Boys vs. Alizee - "Mashup Mix"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Canned Heat - "Pandemonium on the Road Again"
DJ Magnet's remarkable blend of "Love Comes Quickly" with Placebo's 2003 cover of the Kate Bush classic "Running Up That Hill," squeezing in bits of Kate herself in the process. Simply beautiful.
José Cruz (JCRZ) has remixed and mashed "God Willing" with Anne Clark's 2002 "Hardest Heart" (aka "Caress the Hardest Heart") to create an absolutely gorgeous new track. Dare I say it?—the sum just might be greater than the parts. They sound as though they were made to go together.
Created by Eddy Bennett, but greatly inspired by a 2009 bit on internet radio's The Eggnog and Stu Show in which the hosts paid tribute to the recently deceased Mr. Swayze in various ways, including singing the lyrics of his cheesy but nevertheless lovely one-hit wonder "She's Like the Wind" (from the 1987 film Dirty Dancing) atop the instrumental mix of "Minimal." It's nothing short of brilliant.
Virtually inevitable considering that Madonna's 2006 hit "Jump" was largely derived from the "West End Girls" chord progression and bass line to begin with. Again, I don't know who gets the credit for actually doing it.
Someone who goes by the handle F78K posted on YouTube (and probably created) this fabulous mashup of Madonna's "Into the Groove" and Tocadisco's Sunday at Space Mix of the Pet Shop Boys' "Minimal." Madonna's vocal and the PSB/Tocadisco backing track dominate, the result being probably the single best track in this mashup list for just getting up to dance.
Combines the Boys' rendition of "Always on My Mind" with the timeless "The Tracks of My Tears" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles—which, incidentally, has long been my favorite classic Motown group. Smokey is an incredible songwriter. At any rate, it's far from the most technically proficient mashup I've ever heard (Smokey's lead vocal is mixed too far in the foreground), but strikingly imaginative nonetheless.
Dutch recording artist/remixer Brian has created a superb mashup of Mariah's midtempo ballad "Bye Bye" with the instrumental track of Dusty's "In Private" (written and produced by the Boys) to create a first-rate dance track. It's the next best thing to an actual PSB/Mariah collaboration.
Giac (aka DJ Giac) has created a number of terrific PSB mashups, but this is my favorite: a fabulous blending of "Home and Dry" with Coldplay's "Viva la Vida." This was before the Boys first covered the Coldplay song in their 2009 live shows! It would seem that the chord structures of the two songs are extremely similar.
What's good for two becomes even better for three, at least in this particular instance. Some guy named John mashed the aforementioned "Viva la Vida" and "Home and Dry" with a third track, "J'en ai marre!" by French singer Alizée, to raise the mashup bar to new heights. It's an unimaginative mashup title, that's for sure, but I consider the track itself one of the finest mashups I've ever heard.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. The KLF (aka The Timelords) - "Pandemonium in the TARDIS"
The mighty "cliff erosion" strikes again by mashing "Pandemonium" with "Gary in the TARDIS," the KLF's remix of their own late 'eighties hit "Doctorin' the TARDIS," which itself outrageously blended the Doctor Who theme with Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2." This "mashup with a mashup" may have been damn near inevitable considering the "Doctor Who connection," but kudos to the guy who not only did it first but who also did it so very, very well. A delight to listen to, it renders all but overt the humor that covertly underlies virtually all great mashups.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Michael Jackson - "Bad Heart"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit (PSB Party Remix)"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Celine Dion - "Treat Her Like a Lady All Over the World"
As a man with decidedly mixed feelings about Celine Dion (my general pattern is "Celine in the 1990s usually pretty good; Celine since then usually pretty awful"), I was reluctant to add this one to my list. But it finally broke my resistance. A couple of guys named Dan Mei and Marc Johnce mashed Celine's "Treat Her Like a Lady" with PSB's "All Over the World" to come up with this terrific track. Only now that I've admitted my fondness for it, I feel like I have to go do penance somewhere.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Britney Spears vs. Adele vs. Huey Lewis and the News vs. Rihanna featuring David Guetta vs. The All-American Rejects vs. The Bloodhound Gang - "The Power of Rolling Along (Till the World Ends)"
- Pet Shop Boys, "Did You See Me Coming?"
- Britney Spears, "'Till the World Ends"
- Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"
- Huey Lewis and the News - "The Power of Love"
- Rihanna featuring David Guetta - "Who's That Chick?"
- The All-American Rejects - "Move Along"
- The Bloodhound Gang - "Bad Touch"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Queen - "See Me Coming Headlong"
Both an excellent mashup (by "Hotspace80") and a most unusual one in that the instrumentation comes entirely from one track (PSB's "Did You See Me Coming?") and the vocals exclusively from the other (the 1991 Queen single "Headlong"). Generally there's a little more cross-pollination than that.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Green Day - "Boulevard of Broken Homes"
A downright astounding blend of PSB's "Home and Dry" with Green Day's 2004 hit "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," apparently devised by someone who calls himself "Clivester."
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Harold Faltermeyer vs. N.E.R.D. vs. Destiny's Child vs. Kylie Minogue vs. Black Eyed Peas vs. Katy Perry vs. Rihanna vs. Salt N Pepa - "Popalicious!"
- Pet Shop Boys - "West End Girls"
- Harold Faltermeyer - "Axel F"
- N.E.R.D. - "She Wants To Move"
- Destiny's Child - "Bootylicious"
- Kylie Minogue - "Get Outta My Way"
- Black Eyed Peas - "The Time (Dirty Bit)"
- Katy Perry - "Teenage Dream"
- Rihanna - "Only Girl (in the World)"
- Salt-n-Pepa - "Push It"
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Giorgio Moroder - "Vocal Racer"
JCRZ (José Cruz) has made quite a name for himself among fans of "unofficial" PSB remixes with his excellent work, which usually doesn't involve mashups. But his 2013 mashing of "Vocal" with Giorgio Moroder's "Racer" is, quite simply, outstanding.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Genesis - "Home by the West End"
A surprising, extremely curious, yet curiously effective 2012 mashup of "West End Girls" with "Home by the Sea," a classic track by one of my other favorite artists, Genesis. And it's another one of those affairs in which the background music comes completely from one recording (PSB's) and the vocals completely from the other. It's amazing—even a little weird—how well the two fit together, almost like they were made for each other. Props to the masher, "Sjoersje," not only for the terrific execution but also simply for imagining this in the first place.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Stevie Wonder - "Did You See Me Coming?" - "I Just Called To Say I Love You" mashup
The anonymous creator didn't provide the usual clever title derived from mashing the titles together, but he more than makes up for it in the sheer brilliance of his wildly inventive blending of "Did You See Me Coming?" with Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You," all delightfully augmented by his own keyboard contributions. In terms of sheer musical quality, this has to be one of the finest mashups ever.
- Pet Shop Boys vs. Le Sport - "Lovetrain in King's Cross"
Is it still a "mashup" when you take only the lyrics from one track and apply them to an instrumental with a completely different melody, chord structure, and arrangement? I suppose it is if you say it is. Someone going by the name "DJ C" has applied the lyrics of the PSB classic "King's Cross" and sang them (or got somebody else to sing them) to a backing track consisting of the instrumental "Lovetrain" by the Swedish band Le Sport from their 2006 album Euro Deluxe Dance Party. Highly imaginative—and, besides, not bad at all. (Incidentally, Le Sport is mentioned elsewhere on this website for another song of theirs from the same album, "If Neil Tennant Was My Lover." Perhaps it's what gave DJ C the idea in the first place.)
Of course, this track also raises another question – Is it a "cover" when you use another artist's lyrics but not their music? My "PSB covers" page lists a number of instances when the reverse is true—the music is used but not the lyrics—so why not a case like this. So I've listed this recording there as well with an appropriate "qualifier." - Pet Shop Boys vs. Village People - "New York City Boy in San Francisco"
I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard it for myself. A guy calling himself "cliff erosion" posted on YouTube his mashup of the Boys' "Pandemonium" with the old sixties hit "On the Road Again" by Canned Heat. Astounding—right down to the way that the harmonicas in the two originals blend together. It's almost enough to make you wonder whether Neil and Chris had the Heat in mind when they wrote and recorded their song, putting a decidedly techno spin on good ol' boogie-blues.
Reportedly one CjR created this mashup before Michael Jackson's death. If that is indeed the case, then it was only MJ's untimely passing that transformed it into a sick joke—and its heart monitor sound effect into an instance of eerie prescience. Whatever the case, while there's no shortage of sick jokes, none are as good musically as this.
The Boys were very upfront about their "Party Song" having originated with a possible cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit." They abandoned that experiment, but retained the bass line and much of the underlying chord structure for the new track. So it's not surprising that someone (who goes by the name Pacalo) would capitalize on this and mash the two together in a recording that turned up on YouTube. Just short of excellent, its only fault is that Kurt Cobain's voice isn't loud enough in the mix to suit my tastes. And if it were up to me, I would have titled it "Smells Like a Party Song." Much more in keeping with mashup tradition, don't you think?
Marc Johnce does it again, this time mashing no fewer than seven separate tracks—
—to create the mashup to end all mashups. From such a conglomeration you might expect chaos, but you'd be wrong: it all works together superbly well, and in just a little over 3½ minutes to boot! What's especially nice about it, however (aside from its fundamental excellence) is that the PSB track is the single most dominant, serving as the underpinning for all the others. Too cool—quite possibly the greatest PSB mashup of all. In fact, Neil and Chris themselves have said on more than one occasion how much they love it.
A ridiculously good multi-mash by Robin Skouteris that blends the following tracks:
I guess the aforementioned "The Power of Rolling Along (Till the World Ends)" wasn't "the mashup to end all mashups" that I said it was after all.
Someone who identifies as "Butterfly Roof" had the ingenious idea of mashing PSB's "New York City Boy" with a track by the group that inspired that song in the first place, the Village People. Even more ingeniously, they chose their first hit "San Francisco" (albeit a very minor hit compared to much later, greater successes like "Macho Man" and "Y.M.C.A.") to mash it up with. Not surprisingly, it's as gay as can be. And it's absolutely delightful!
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